The longest serving female inmate was released from prison on Tuesday. Betty Smithey now 69 years old, was granted parole by the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency on Monday. She was released from the Arizona State Prison Complex in Perryville, walking with a cane. At age 20, Smithey was convicted in the 1963 New Year’s Day murder of Sandy Gerberick, a 15-month-old girl she had been babysitting. Smithey was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. She tried, appealing to then-governors Fyfe Symington and Janet Napolitano, but was denied until Jan Brewer, the current governor, agreed to lower her sentence to 48 years to life. Smithey will live with her niece in Mesa Arizona. Betty Smith told the Arizona Republic “It’s wonderful driving down the road and not seeing any barbed wire, I am lucky, so very lucky.” FYI thisandthatreaders!!!
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